Tips For Managing A Successful Growing Business Coaching
A business coach is an experienced entrepreneur who has been where you want to go and gained the experience you need, who can give you an outside perspective and advice on how to build a successful business – without going overboard, trial and error is exhausting.
In fact, a business coach is similar to a sports coach because your coach’s job is to help you focus, organize, adjust, work and adjust so that you can get the results you want, you support your business.
Many business owners build their business on their own, without the outside opinion and feedback of an experienced advisor. Additionally, most business owners have no one in their professional lives who challenges their ideas and opinions. Of course, they have many employees, or many things to ask someone who depends on you for financial support from their family to challenge you with things that you don’t want to hear, but it is really important. Plus, they’ve “been there and done that” and can tell you about their first-hand experiences.
Here are some tips to get the most out of your business coaching:
Choose a coach who has a deep experience and knowledge base to draw from. The whole idea of hiring a business coach is to help you avoid the many costly trials and errors that many business owners go through when starting a business. Although many of the situations you face in your business (whether it’s managing your team, increasing your sales, developing your new product or service, or controlling your expenses) are new. For you, your coach can draw on their past experience(s). keep the light in the best way forward. Choose a coach who can explain and explain things to you in simple, step-by-step language so that you can take what they share and apply it immediately and effectively.
Meet with your business coach often, but not too often. I will prepare every two weeks. You need to meet often to be able to get an effective report (once a month is not enough), but not so often that you don’t have time to do something. Get weekly updates from your business coach on your progress.
Spending 5-15 minutes each week updating your coach on your progress adds clarification of questions into the mix and keeps your coach engaged with your business so they can give you the best possible input. Share your number honestly. Yes, it can be scary to share your revenue, margins and operating profit numbers openly, but being open will give you valuable outside feedback and ideas. Don’t sugarcoat anything. Your teacher will not judge you. His true desire is to help you grow and succeed, and to do that he needs the right data.
Don’t focus only on the emerging challenges, look for a holistic approach and solution. Solving challenges is great, but solving challenges in a way that will improve and build your company’s systems and internal controls is even more valuable. Ad hoc solutions are difficult to measure. System-based solutions are stable and easy to develop.
Give your business administrator permission to hold you. The right business coach must be by your side, and sometimes that means being the only person in charge of your professional life who calls you to bed. Your employees can’t do this – you sign their wages. As I work with business clients, I have seen the impact on their business when they play and let me hold them.
Don’t use or explain the truth, because even if you “win” the argument, the truth will always win the battle. I smile when I think of all the smart people and business owners that I have trained with over the years. At one time or another, most of them felt that they could use a well-heard argument to explain a challenge or situation. I am smiling. Truth is what is true, and what is objectively true is true. You don’t have to defend yourself or apologize to your coach. Use your business coaching relationship as a place where you can share what’s going on in your professional life. Your business coach will help you take full responsibility and accept the facts on the ground. From there, the two of you can devise effective action plans to apply those facts to achieve your business goals.
Save your money and get help and ideas from your business coach. You don’t have to be reserved or pretty. Your coach has just seen everything you saw and worked on it. Allow them to save you time, energy, emotion and money by helping you learn from their experience along with painful and expensive trial and error.
Get rid of your excuses. You won’t do it perfectly, but you have to do something. Sure, you work hard, but when will that really change if you don’t do things that undermine your business’s trust in you? My final lesson for you is that if you want to enjoy the growth and freedom that a good business coach can help you enjoy, then you need to get rid of your excuses and step into commitment. It is clear that you will make mistakes and have setbacks, but I have seen magic that can happen over 12-24-36 months of focus, guidance and smart action in scaling a business. Time will pass anyway. What will you say in 3 years from today? “If only I had…” or “I’m glad I did?” So go ahead and put your coach’s input to work.